Asch Conformity Test

The Asch conformity experiments were a series of psychological experiments conducted by Solomon Asch during the 1950s. The experiments revealed the degree to which a person's own opinions are influenced by those of a group. Asch found that people were willing to ignore reality and give an incorrect answer in order to conform to the rest of the group.

Solomon Asch’s Conformity Experiments

In psychological terms, conformity refers to an individual's tendency to follow the unspoken rules or behaviors of the social group to which he or she belongs. Researchers have long been interested in the degree to which people follow or rebel against social norms. Asch was interested in looking at how pressure from a group could lead people to conform, even when they knew that the rest of the group was wrong. The purpose of Asch's experiments? To demonstrate the power of conformity in groups.

In one study, a group of participants was shown a series of printed line segments of different lengths: 1, 2, 3. Participants were then shown a fourth line segment. They were asked to identify which line segment from the first group most closely resembled the fourth line segment in length. These line segments illustrate the judgment task in Asch’s conformity study. Which line on the right—1, 2, or 3—is the same length as line on the left?

Each group of participants had only one true, naïve subject. The remaining members of the group were confederates of the researcher. A confederate is a person who is aware of the experiment and works for the researcher. Confederates are used to manipulate social situations as part of the research design, and the true, naïve participants believe that confederates are, like them, uninformed participants in the experiment. In Asch’s study, the confederates identified a line segment that was obviously shorter than the target line—a wrong answer. The naïve participant then had to identify aloud the line segment that best matched the target line segment.

Asch (1955) found that 76% of participants conformed to group pressure at least once by indicating the incorrect line. Conformity is the change in a person’s behavior to go along with the group, even if he does not agree with the group.

Factors That Influence Conformity

Asch went on to conduct further experiments in order to determine which factors influenced how and when people conform. He found that:

• Conformity tends to increase when more people are present. However, there is little change once the group size goes beyond four or five people.

• Conformity also increases when the task becomes more difficult. In the face of uncertainty, people turn to others for information about how to respond.

• Conformity increases when other members of the group are of a higher social status. When people view the others in the group as more powerful, influential, or knowledgeable than themselves, they are more likely to go along with the group.

• Conformity tends to decrease, however, when people are able to respond privately. Research has also shown that conformity decreases if they have support from at least one other individual in a group

• Conformity tends to decrease with the presence of another dissenter: If there is at least one dissenter, conformity rates drop to near zero (Asch, 1955).

Takeaway:

In this social environment, especially with the advent of social networking platforms, the pressure to conform has never been higher. Be the outlier/dissenter if that is morally right, big waves can be created from a mere ripple.